Many fantasy baseball players are not yet familiar with Jesús Sánchez, so today, we are going to do some exploring and get more familiar with him by taking a look at who he was expected to be as a prospect and what he is doing early in his career. This helps us understand if we should be looking to go out and acquire him, be patient with him, or move on.

The Dominican-born Sanchez was signed as an international free agent by the Tampa Bay Rays in 2014. He played in their system until he was traded by the Rays to the Marlins in 2019. As a minor leaguer, he was seen as having plus raw power, but a poor hit tool. He's perceived to be a player who gives you a plate approach where he is always swinging as hard as he can and that all-or-nothing approach will lead to him being inconsistent at the plate. However, he has the bat speed, raw power and hand-eye coordination to be a very effective MLB with the ability to hit over 30 home runs if everything comes together for him.

 

 

In Previous Seasons

Now that we have an idea of what was projected for Sanchez, let’s take a look at what he has done in MLB up to this season and what he has done so far this year. We saw our first real sample size of at-bats from Sanchez in 2021, where he had 251 plate appearances across 64 games with the Marlins. In those appearances, we essentially saw him meet the expectations that prospect writers had laid out for him. 

According to StatCast he was in the 91st-percentile for exit velocity, and he showed above-average speed. This translated to a batting average of .251 and 14 home runs. To put his home run numbers into context, he was hitting a home run in six-percent of his plate appearances which would have extrapolated to 502 plate appearances (the number required to qualify for the batting title) which would have put him in the 30-home run range. 

We can appreciate that extrapolating those numbers is a little foolhardy. There are a lot of variables that go into those at-bats, which could lead to his numbers being wildly different. It highlights that his power is real, and at the very least, he has shown he can hit pitching in MLB. 

 

 

This Season

Fast-forward to this season, and we have an impressive start from Sanchez. He has a triple-slash at the time of writing of 356/396/667, and an expected batting average and a slugging percentage of .339 (top-four percent in MLB) and .552, respectively. The actual versus the expected numbers tell us that what he has done so far has been earned and likely isn’t based on a lot of luck - which is important. This is also a good time for us to note that again we are dealing with very small sample sizes so far this year, and we shouldn’t expect Sanchez to be the type of hitter who will win batting titles. There is going to be significant regression in his numbers. Those numbers also highlight that he isn’t drawing walks, as he is only doing that at the rate of four percent. What these numbers do continue to show us though is that he is going to be a very capable and useful member of your fantasy team for periods of time. 

 

Do We Buy or Sell Sánchez?

After all of this, what I can tell you is that we should be willing to buy on Jesús Sánchez. We can see that his power is real, and while we should hope that he is able to work with the Marlins staff to refine his approach so he can walk more. That will help him be more consistently useful, as he also isn’t striking out at an unreasonable pace (around 20 percent of his plate appearances this year, and for most of his minor league career). That should at least give him a chance to maintain a batting average in the .250 range which ultimately delivers a useful fantasy player in fantasy formats that are using batting average. If you’re playing with OBP you may wish to hold off though.

 

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